Tractatus de Deo Trino secundum personas

« In the formula more frequent among the Greek Fathers, whereby the Holy Spirit is said to proceed from the Father through the Son, 1° the very same dogma is enunciated, as is manifestly evident both from the words considered in themselves and from their explanation among the Fathers themselves. 2° Because in this manner of speaking the procession from the Father is signified as from a primordial principle communicating the spirative power also to the Son, and the procession through the Son as from one having the spirative power communicated by generation, the saying of St. Maximus and of St. John Damascene is thereby reconciled with the catholic dogma — they who, asserting the procession of the Spirit through the Son, alone among all the holy Doctors seem to have denied the procession from the Son ».

I. By common consent the Greek Fathers teach that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. This indeed even the schismatics are compelled to concede, but to the proposition torn from its contexts they substitute alien meanings by sophistical evasions, which could have been devised only by men foolishly resisting evident truth. No one has better comprised the sum of all that is to be said here than Bessarion in chapter 6. of the distinguished dogmatic oration, which, delivered to his Greeks at the Council of Florence, he himself afterwards translated into the Latin tongue (Hard. IX. p. 335. sqq.). We shall speak first of the formula itself in itself and according to the signification of the prepositions ex and per; then of the more explicit declarations of the Fathers.

1°. If the locution be considered in itself, no one gainsaying it, the Father is indicated as the principle of the eternal procession, the Holy Spirit as the proceeding term: from the Father proceeds the Holy Spirit. But where the principle or cause is introduced through the particle a or ex and the term or effect is added, and so the enunciation is directly causal; in such an enunciation that also which is interposed in the oblique case under the particle διά, per, always and necessarily has the character of a principle or cause, whether formal or efficient. This must first of all be declared, from which afterwards there will be understood the unity and the distinction of the twofold formula under discussion.

a) If the subjects governed by the particles a and per be not distinct hypostases, this latter will indicate the formal reason of the cause, or that which can be reduced to the formal reason; e. g. by God through omnipotence the world is created, by man through the intellect the true is understood, through the will the good is sought. If the hypostases be distinct and the term be an effect, the particle per designates the efficient cause, but in created things subordinated to the more principal cause; for the principal cause acts through the subordinate cause; e. g. by the agent through the instrument the work is effected etc.

In the transference to God this signification is modified according to the nature of the subject; for in the divine persons subordination cannot be except that of origin, according to the ἀξίωμα of a principle preceding from a principle. Hence in the whole biblical and ecclesiastical manner of speaking all works ad extra are said to be from the Father through the Son; where although the nature is one, and consequently the principle by which of the operation is one, and the operation is one and undivided, nevertheless the distinction among the persons is so indicated that the numerically one nature and operative power and operation are communicated from the Father to the Son. Whence the particles a and per signify one and the same causality, but at the same time they co-signify the ἀξίωμα of the principle in the person from whom as from a primordial source the operation is, and the origin in the person through whom that one is said to operate (cf. above p. 163. 200).

Although therefore separately it may equally be said, e. g., that all things are created through the Father, and that all things are created by the Son; yet not without absurdity could it be said that all things are created by the Son through the Father, because, as I said, in this conjunction besides the causality, which is one of the Father and of the Son, there is at the same time signified the communication of the nature and of the operative power from one person into another.

On the signification of particles of this kind, at length and against the Arians, St. Basil discourses in the book On the Holy Spirit c. 2-8. «That the Father creates through the Son, among other things he says, that neither shows the Father's operation to be imperfect nor demonstrates the Son's power to be weak; but it declares the unity of the will (of the substantial will, which is the very divine essence itself), so that the particle per has the force of a confession of the primordial cause» ¹ l. de Spiritu Sancto c. 8. n. 21.

The same doctrine of St. Basil was contracted into a compendium by Chrysostom hom. V. al. IV. in Ioan. n. 2. 3. Explaining the words: «all things were made through him», he shows that the particle per does not signify a «diminution» (ἐλάττωσιν), as the Arians thought, but that there is expressed «the one dignity of the creative operation of the Son with the Father». Nevertheless, he says, «if here it is said through him, it has been placed for no other reason than that no one might suspect the Son to be unbegotten» ² l. c. n. 2.

Thus also Cyril, speaking directly of the mission of the Holy Spirit, declares that by the very fact that the Father is said to send through the Son there is indicated one principle of the mission, the Father and the Son, the distinction nevertheless being preserved between the Father begetting and the Son begotten, as with Paul it is said of the Father, from whom are all things; of the Son, through whom are all things; and for this reason while the Father is said to send separately, the Son is understood together with the Father, and in turn the Father together with the Son. «The Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father. He gives therefore the Paraclete, i. e. the Holy Spirit, not the Father separately and the Son separately indeed; but rather He is given to the saints by the Father through the Son; and on that account while the Father is said to give, the Son gives, through whom are all things; while the Son is said to give, the Father gives, from whom are all things» Cyrill. in Io. p. 810. See August. Trin. IV. n. 29. above p. 459. 460.

Now if the term be not an effect, but a person proceeding from the substance, i. e. through the communication of the nature; the signification of the particles a Patre per Filium is not on that account destroyed, but is modified according to the character of such a procession. As therefore in the works of efficiency, e. g. in creation, the particle per Filium signifies the cause no less than the other, a Patre, and indeed one cause, with the co-signification of the distinction of persons, in that the Father communicates to the Son the creative power; so in this ad intra procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father through the Son each particle retains the αἰτιατικήν force; but just as the particle a Patre now signifies not the efficient cause but the principle of spiration (as the schismatics themselves readily concede), so also the other, per Filium, signifies the same principle, with the co-signification of the distinction of the persons of the Father and of the Son, in that the power and the act of spiration is communicated from the Father into the Son, and thus from the Father through the Son proceeds the Holy Spirit. Just as therefore in creation from the Father through the Son there is signified not one cause and another cause but one cause, yet two persons, and at the same time the origin of the Son from the Father; by a like reasoning in the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father through the Son there is exhibited one principle of the procession, because just as the essence is one, so also the spirative power is one, while the persons are shown to be two, whose the essence is under the formal reason also of the spirative power, but in such a way that the Father is the principle without principle (προκαταρκτικὴ αἰτία), the Son is not a principle without principle but one with the Father principle of the Holy Spirit, just as He is one God and creator with the Father, inasmuch as by generation He has all things communicated which are the Father's (except paternity), and hence also the spirative power. For the Father and the Son are not more distinguished from one another by spiration than by the Godhead or by the absolute attributes, since there is no other distinction between them than through the formal reason of paternity and of filiation ³

b) From what has been said it appears that the sentence whereby the Holy Spirit is said to proceed from the Father through the Son differs from the other whereby He is said to proceed from the Father and from the Son not in the thing signified, but nevertheless in the manner of signifying the same thing. In this other manner of speaking the declaration of the unity of the principle is directly regarded, but the order of origin between the Father and the Son, although contained in the very names, is not however explicitly expressed with respect to the spiration itself, which is communicated to the Son from the Father. In the former manner of speaking, on the other hand, the purpose is directly to signify the order of origin between the two spirating persons, that the Father is the primordial font (προκαταρκτικὴ αἰτία), from whom as the essence so also the spirative power is communicated to the Son; the unity of the principle, however, is contained not explicitly in the particles themselves a Patre per Filium, but rather in the signification of the subject (God the Father and God the Son). The western Fathers therefore, in the formula solemn for them whereby they say the procession from the Father and from the Son, directly enunciate against the Arians the unity of essence and of spiration, and include the distinction of persons against the Sabellians; the eastern, in the formula more frequent for them of the procession from the Father through the Son, directly enunciate the distinction and the order of the spirating persons to the exclusion of Sabellianism and to repel the calumny, more than once attempted by the Arians, of confusion of persons, and at the same time include the unity of the principle against the Arian heresy. Compare what we have said about the western formula: «one substance in three persons», in comparison with the formula of the eastern: «one essence in three hypostases» (above p. 120. note).

Moreover we have seen that the eastern also embrace the formula: from the Father and from the Son; nor are there lacking Latins who equally take up the other, from the Father through the Son; who indeed no less expressly establish the procession principally from the Father, in the same sense in which the eastern call the Father the primordial principle προκαταρκτικὴν αἰτίαν (above p. 450. 456. seq.). Namely, although the Son even ad intra is a principle (ἀρχή), He is nevertheless not without principle (ἄναρχος), and therefore in comparison with the Father neither προκαταρκτική; but ἄναρχος καὶ αἰτία προκαταρκτικὴ the Father alone is, the Son is ἀρχή, the Holy Spirit ad intra is not the principle of another person. This Gregory Naz. or. 42. al. 32. n. 15 said most beautifully. «The one without principle, and the principle, and the one that is with the principle, is one God.... The name of the one without principle is Father, of the principle Son, of the one that is with the principle (the name) Holy Spirit; but the nature of the three is one, namely God. The union, however, is the Father, from whom and to whom those who proceed in order are referred» ⁴ 2°. If the contexts of the Fathers themselves are inspected, and the manner in which they teach the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father through the Son, no place is left for doubting their sense and their agreement with the western Fathers.

For a) they not only simply say the procession from the Father through the Son, but they directly declare that their discourse is about the immanent and eternal procession of the person of the Holy Spirit, which is through the Son, and so not only about the mission ad extra. For they say that the Holy Spirit proceeds through the Son essentially, according to essence, by nature, naturally. See the testimonies in the places cited above p. 438.

b) They describe this very procession, what it is: namely, that the nature is communicated from the Father through the Son to the Holy Spirit. «What property (relation) we know to be the Son's toward the Father, the same we shall find the Holy Spirit to have toward the Son; and just as the Son says: all things that are the Father's are mine (namely by the immanent origin of the Son from the Father); so we shall find that all these things are through the Son also in the Spirit (by like reason, therefore, by immanent origin)» ⁵ Athanas. ep. 3. ad Serap. n. 1. «Natural goodness and essential holiness and royal dignity flow from the Father through the Only-begotten into the Spirit» Basil. de Spir. Sancto c. 18. n. 47. «Since the Spirit naturally (φυσικῶς) proceeds through the Son, as His own Spirit, He is said (in the Scriptures) to receive, along with all things which He perfectly has, the things that are the Son's» Cyrill. in Io. p. 929. 930.

c) Declaring the procession of the Spirit from the Father through the Son, they say that, according to the order of origin among the divine persons, the Son is the medium between the Father and the Holy Spirit in such a way that the Son alone is from the Father alone, the Spirit however not from the Father alone but from the Father through the Son; and therefore the Son is proximately from the Father, and the Spirit through Him who is proximately from the Father. Whence they say that there is an order among the persons, such that «by thought alone, according to the reason of principle, the Son is pre-understood before the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit» (Nyss. contr. Eunom. I. p. 164); that the Father is the cause (αἴτιον) of the Holy Spirit, «but through the Word as the medium» διὰ μέσου δὲ τοῦ Λόγου (s. Maxim. l. quaest. et dubior. q. 34); and in this sense that the proper personal character of the Holy Spirit is this, that «He is manifested after the Son and together with Him, and the Son manifests the Spirit through Himself and with Himself» (Basil. ep. 38. al. 43. n. 4). But of this doctrine of the Fathers we shall treat separately below.

d) All the comparisons by which the holy Doctors frequently illustrate the procession of the Spirit from the Father through the Son exhibit the Holy Spirit proceeding equally from the Son, so that they at the same time show that the spiration power is in the Son as communicated from the Father. «The Father is the sun, the Son the ray, the Spirit the splendor»; «the Father the fountain, the Son the river, the Spirit the stream»; or «the Father the spring, the Son the fountain, the Spirit the water»; «the Father the root, the Son the shoot, the Spirit the fruit»; «the Son the flower, the Spirit the fragrance from the flower» (Cyrill. dialog. VI. p. 593); «the Son the honey, the Spirit the sweetness»; «the Son the fire, the Spirit the heat»; «the Son the water, the Spirit the refreshment»; «the Son the mouth of the Father, the Spirit the breath from the mouth»; «the Son the mind of the Father, and the Wisdom of the Father and the truth of the true Father, the Spirit from the mind and the Spirit of Wisdom and the Spirit of truth»; «the Son the life, the Spirit the power (ἐνέργεια) of the Son Himself». See the citations passim in the foregoing; cf. also Emum Hergenroether Animadv. in Photii mystag. § II. n. 6. (Migne PP. GG. CII. p. 422).

From all these things it is manifest how unjustly Mark of Ephesus in the Council of Florence refused to subscribe to the definition in which the rest of the Greek bishops agreed with the Latins. «With this holy universal Council approving, we define that this truth of faith be believed and received by all Christians, and so all profess that the Holy Spirit is eternally from the Father and the Son, and that He has His essence and His subsistent being from the Father together with the Son, and proceeds from both eternally as from one principle and a single spiration; declaring that what the holy Doctors and Fathers say, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, tends to this understanding, that by this it is signified that the Son is also, according to the Greeks indeed the cause (αἰτίαν), according to the Latins however the principle of subsistence of the Holy Spirit (ἀρχὴν τῆς τοῦ ἁγίου Πνεύματος ὑπάρξεως), just as the Father also. And since all things that are the Father's, the Father Himself gave to His Only-begotten by begetting, except to be the Father, this very thing, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, the Son Himself has eternally from the Father, from whom He was also eternally begotten» Harduin. IX. p. 422. 986.

II. From that more frequent usage of the Greek Fathers of distinguishing the order of the persons of the Father and the Son in the very doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit, and from their zeal always to declare explicitly the Father as the primordial source of the Trinity (κορυφή, ῥίζα, πηγὴ τῆς θεότητος, ἄναρχος ἀρχή, προκαταρκτικὴ αἰτία), it came about that from the seventh century onward some Greeks thought that, from the manner of speaking of the Fathers, the signification of the name cause or principle, αἰτία, and of the particle ἐξ, at least where the internal processions are concerned, was already determined to designate the Father alone, who is the primordial principle, προκαταρκτικὴ αἰτία ⁶. With this presupposed, certainly neither could the Son be said by them to be the αἰτία or primordial principle of the Holy Spirit, nor the Holy Spirit to proceed from the Son, but only, according to the formula, in the sense which we have said to be determined, to proceed from the Father through the Son. This manner of understanding the locutions of the ancient Fathers, certainly too exclusive, by itself indeed as yet contains no dogmatic error; it could nevertheless offer, and in fact afterwards did offer, to the schismatics the occasion of erring, or rather of covering over with some varnish the error in the very dogma. There are two Greek writers, one of the seventh, the other of the eighth century, who took the name αἰτία and the particle ἐξ in the signification that has been stated.

In the Council of Florence there was produced by the Greeks a fragment from the letter of St. Maximus to Marinus, presbyter of Cyprus (Hard. IX. p. 306.; Opp. s. Maximi T. II. p. 68. sqq.; from the translation of Anastasius Bibliothecarius in Galland. XIII. p. 38. cf. the same Anastasius' ep. to Ioan. diacon. ib. p. 31; Lequien. Damascen. dissert. I. n. 10) ⁷. There Maximus reports that the Constantinopolitan Monothelites had censured only two things in the synodical letter of the Roman Pontiff by whom they had been condemned: one «concerning the divine incarnation, that he had written that the Lord, as man, is without the sin of the first parent» (ἄνευ τῆς προπατορικῆς ἁμαρτίας) ⁸; but the other, which pertains to our matter, they charged, «because he said that the Holy Spirit proceeds also from the Son» ἐκπορεύεσθαι δὲ τοῦ Υἱοῦ τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον ⁹.

In men who could twist the clearest statement, in which it is taught that Christ is without the corruption of sin, to an alien sense, it is not surprising that they also found a calumny for this other point about the procession from the Son; of what sort it was is understood from the response of the Romans, as reported by Maximus.

In the first place, as to the manner of speaking, they answered that both the Latin Fathers and St. Cyril had said that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son. As to the matter itself, however, they said that they were not ignorant that the Father is the αἰτίαν, namely the principle without principle both of the Son by generation and of the Holy Spirit by active emission (as Anastasius renders ἐκπόρευσιν). But when the Holy Spirit is said to proceed also from the Son, there is understood the procession from the Father through the Son, so that namely the active spiration is in the Son as communicated from the Father, and thus all things that are the Father's are also the Son's, and the Son is truly consubstantial with the Father, which consubstantiality would be destroyed if the act of spiration communicated from the Father were denied to the Son. «And first indeed they (the Romans) brought forward the consonant testimonies of the Latin Fathers, and moreover also those of Cyril of Alexandria, from his sacred work which he wrote on St. John the Evangelist; from which they showed that they do not make the Son the cause (αἰτίαν) of the Holy Spirit; for they knew the Father as the one cause of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, of the one indeed by generation, of the other however by procession (κατὰ τὴν ἐκπόρευσιν); but that they signified that He comes forth through Him (through the Son), and by this reason demonstrated the unity of the essence and the complete equality» ¹⁰ s. Max. l. c.

Therefore it can truly be said what Anastasius Bibliothecarius (ep. ad Ioan. diacon. Galland XIII. p. 31) says of St. Maximus: «he teaches both us and the Greeks that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son in a certain respect and in a certain respect does not proceed», namely, that He does not proceed from the Son as from a first person through a spiration power not communicated, but that He proceeds through the Son, who is the second person, and therefore, the spiration power having been communicated from the Father, one principle with the Father of the Holy Spirit ¹¹ Moreover St. Maximus, where he directly sets forth his own opinion, expressly teaches that the Holy Spirit is so naturally the Spirit of the Son as He is naturally the Spirit of the Father, and hence that the relation of the Holy Spirit to the Son is the same as that which is to the Father, «because He ineffably proceeds essentially from the Father through the begotten Son» ¹² Quaest. 63. in Script. Opp. T. p. 238. He repeats the same things in the same words in the solution of doubt 53 to the king of Achrida (Bulgaria); but there, after the words «He ineffably proceeds essentially from the Father through the begotten Son», for a still stricter declaration of the internal procession, he adds these: «therefore no cutting or division can be conceived in any way, as if either the Father without the Son (because He is eternally generated) or the Son without the Spirit (because He eternally proceeds) were understood (οὐκ ἔστιν οὖν ἢ τὸν Πατέρα χωρὶς τοῦ Υἱοῦ ἐννοηθῆναι, ἢ τὸν Υἱὸν χωρὶς τοῦ Πνεύματος); but there is in these a certain ineffable and incomprehensible unity and at the same time distinction» ibid. p. 671. Not less clearly, in the place cited a little above, he explains the matter by a comparison. He asks why it cannot be said that the Father and Christ are of the Holy Spirit, when nevertheless it is said, as the Spirit of God, so the Spirit of Christ. This is the response: «As the mind is the source of reason (of the word expressed in the mind), so also it is the source of the spirit (of the voice), but through the intermediate reason; and as we cannot say that reason (the internal word) is of the voice (has its origin from the voice), so neither can we say that the Son is of the Holy Spirit» (because namely the Spirit has its origin from the Son). We say that the Spirit is of the Son; but not conversely, because the Son does not proceed from the Spirit» ¹³ (quaest. et dubior. q. 34. ibid. p. 313). Compare the doctrine of Augustine described above, p. 408.

From the same principles the sense of St. John Damascene is now also understood, who is the other author of the eighth century, denying that the procession is said to be from the Son, but constantly at the same time affirming that it is from the Father through the Son. For Damascene says, Fid. Orthod. l. I. c. 8: «We do not say that the Father is from something, but we call Him Himself the Father of the Son; the Son likewise we call neither cause ¹⁴ nor Father, but rather that He is from the Father and the Son of the Father. Finally, we say that the Holy Spirit is both from the Father and the Spirit of the Father; but that the Spirit is from the Son we do not say, yet we call Him the Spirit of the Son; for if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, says the divine Apostle, he is not His; and we profess that He appeared through the Son and is communicated to us ¹⁵. For He breathed, he says, and said to His disciples: receive the Holy Spirit. Just as in the sun there is both ray and splendor; for it itself is the source of the ray and of the splendor, and through the ray the splendor is communicated to us» Damasc. l. c. That in what he says, that the Spirit appeared through the Son, the eternal procession is included, is shown both by the testimonies of Scripture and by the comparison which he uses; for from the same things the Fathers are wont to demonstrate the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit through the Son (cf. supra, p. 450. 452. 473). See also homil. in Sabb. sanct. n. 4. T. II. p. 817.

Moreover Damascene himself often expressly declares the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit through the Son. «I know that the Father alone is superessential..... He Himself is the abyss of the Word, the begetter of the Word and through the Word the producer of the manifesting Spirit...... The Holy Spirit is the manifesting power of the Father of the hidden things of the Godhead, proceeding from the Father indeed through the Son..... the Spirit of the Father, as proceeding from the Father; for no motion (ὁρμή, vital motion, or act of the will; cf. Marium Victorin. supra p. 453) is without the Spirit. And He is the Spirit of the Son, not because He proceeds through Him from the Father; for the Father alone is the cause» (primordial) ¹⁶ Damascen. de divin. nominibus T. I. p. 148. To these he has like things in dialog. contr. Manich. n. 5. p. 432; ep. ad Iordan. n. 28. p. 497.

In that latter place he repeats what St. Basil had said (supra p. 429. 430): «The Holy Spirit is proceeding from the Father through the Son and the Word; not however in the manner of filiation (οὐχ υἱικῶς δέ)... For if the Spirit is the Son of the Son, He too will have a Son, and that one another, and so to infinity». These things manifestly show that Damascene understood the procession through the Son as through a producing principle of the Holy Spirit; for he could not have said otherwise: if the procession from the Father through the Son (which he confesses and teaches) were in the manner of filiation, it would follow from this that the Spirit would be the Son of the Son. Read Bessarion. de Process. Spiritus Sancti p. 261 sqq. (inter opusc. aurea); and in orat. dogmat. (Hard. IX. p. 350. sq.) ¹⁷